I remember back in elementary school we would periodically sing from a folk-song book. I had thought at the time that all the songs were American folk songs – if the song book said otherwise, I didn’t notice or retain that information.

So the other night, when Chris clicked by a German folk music show, the song sounded familiar, even though the lyrics didn’t. On the show there was a large chorus of girls, perhaps ages 7-17,  clad in identical dirndls and blonde pigtails, singing in German to a tune I recognized, even if the lyrics were slightly different. Here’s the refrain the kids on the show were singing:

Faleri, falera, faleri,
Falera ha ha ha ha ha ha
Faleri, falera,
Und schwenke meinen Hut.

And here’s what I remembered being sung to the same tune back in elementary schoo:

Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back.

Recognize that? Yup, the song we heard the German children singing was the same as The Happy Wanderer song I’d learned as a kid, albeit with German lyrics.

The particular TV program was all about traditional German songs, or so it seemed. So my first thought was that it was odd that an American folk song would be translated into German and sung on this show.

But then it immediately occurred to me that I didn’t really know for a fact that the Happy Wanderer was an American folk song.

A subsequent check in Wikipedia revealed that The Happy Wander was in fact originally a German song, albeit not a German folk song.  It was written after WWII and popularized by a German children’s choir’s recording of it;  the children who sung in the original  choir were all war orphans.  The original name of the song is Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann, “My Father was a Wayfaring Man”. The song made the choir internationally famous,  and they were invited to perform around the world,  including appearing twice on The Ed Sullivan Show in the U.S.

Of course, you may already have known that, but I thought I’d pass it along, just in case you didn’t, since that surprised the heck out of me.  I really remember singing it in class in elementary school and have no recollection of learning that we were singing anything but American songs at the time.

Anyway, here are a couple of links for you to wander through:

• Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann (sung in German by the original Obernkirchen choir) (an alternate clip with information about the choir in the notes is here.
• The Happy Wanderer (sung in English)
• Lyrics in German and in English for the song – note that the English is not a translation of the German (which talks about a father liking to go for hikes), but the refrain is pretty much the same (the same nonsense type little refrain is there, with the German vs American pronunciation, I guess). The English refrain’s last line, “A knapsack on my back” seems like it would have made sense to have some from the original German. But no — the last line of the refrain  in German is Und schwenke meinen Hut, “and waving my hat”.

Enjoy!